Coming up on this episode of The Roundtable.

This kind of thing might be a dimension of a healthy republic.

In a world where we do actually trust our officials, we do trust them to give us like the best approximation of what we need to know, not actually the maximal information about everything that's going on, especially in issues that deal with

national security or with the military, like a certain degree, the optimal level of secrecy

in a healthy government is not zero. And so you do really rely on some degree of trustworthiness

in your officials at some point. It's just that once that's broken down, it's not clear what to

replace it with. And so then you get some people flying stuff over airspace. And all of a sudden,

every theory seems as plausible as every other. And this is how real conspiracy craziness,

which genuinely does psychically derange people, starts to take hold.

So it really is kind of the wages of a lack of transparency in bureaucracy,

creating this situation that drives people a little bit crazy. Hello and welcome once again to the Roundtable, your weekly publishers and editors podcast from The American Mind.

I'm your host, Spencer Claven, Associate Editor of the Claremont Review of Books and Nicotine Pouch, editor of the American Mind.

One of my buddies has at last handed me the poison fruit that

all Gen Z males are into. And my status is honorary member of Generation Z, despite being

a millennial, I am utterly hooked. I'm chewing on one right now. I'm not sure what to say

about it exactly. But if I seem even more manic than usual, that's why I'm chewing on one right now. I'm not sure what to say about it exactly, but if I seem

even more manic than usual, that's why. I'm joined this week by managing editor, Mike Sabo,

and publisher and president Ryan Williams for our last episode of the year. The next two Wednesdays

are going to be Christmas and New Year's Day respectively.

So we, like all right thinking people, are going to hang up our hats, spend some time with

family, celebrate the birth of our Lord, etc. And we'll get into a little bit of end of year

stuff down the line at the end of this episode. But first, we've got a couple last topics

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